Z is for Zouar – Oxford Uni Expedition 1965

Part of the occasional Sahara A to Z series
Hang around long enough and you’ll get the full set

Back in 1965 the pro-Western Kingdom of Libya was just fourteen years old. US and UK military bases used the desert for training and testing, then the discovery of high-quality crude just 200km from the coast changed Libya’s fortunes. Gaddafi’s coup was still a few years away.Chad had gained independence in 1960 but, as has been the case on and off since then, France retained military and Foreign Legion bases. In the film you’ll see a French tricolour raised at Zouar.

And best of all he Chadian civil war was still a few months away, so what better time for some Oxford university students to drive 5000 miles to Zouar for their summer hols in a a couple of new 88 Landies and a 2WD Ford D-series lorry loaned by Ford. This was a time when it was still common for truck manufacturers to prove their vehicles on Sahara expeditions.

The film includes episodes of Tubu horseplay, lashings of corned beef and a Landrover door that won’t shut. Interestingly you’ll also see a woman making flour with a grinding stone of the sort still commonly found abandoned all over the Sahara, wherever people once lived. As the narrator says ‘in remote parts of the world it’s hard to tell when such [Neolithic] tools were last used.’ At 14:20 there’s also an engraving of what might be a Garamantean chariot. Germa is not so from Zouar.